


This sugar's gone sour, and it's gone way too far

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Arthur asks Karen on a date and she pities him, saying yes. A certain someone gets jealous and spies on them  and things get confessed (and thrown)</p>
            </blockquote>





	This sugar's gone sour, and it's gone way too far

Arthur asks her out on the last day of filming. Karen briefly considers saying no because  _why would he ever do something like that on a day that’s already been really emotional_ and because she thinks that while they have fantastic on-screen chemistry, she’s happy enough being friends with him in real life. 

But here he is, having found her on the way back to her trailer for a lunch break, and Arthur is cute. (Not like, good-looking cute. Okay, he’s a little good-looking cute. But mostly adorable cute.) Karen’s a bit tired of being single, and maybe there’s someone else who she hopes would ask her out, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in making a move.

“So, there’s this new Indian place that just opened up not far from my flat in London, and I know that you’re probably moving and stuff and you’re really busy, but if you have some time maybe the two of us could go out for dinner? And I’d pay? I mean, I don’t think that you’ve…” He’s rambling. Arthur rambles when he’s nervous. 

“Yeah,” Karen says, nodding, “That sounds like fun, Arthur. I haven’t been on a date in ages.” She smiles.

“Wonderful,” he says in a rush, “Can I pick you up around eight on Saturday?”

Karen nods. “See you on set in an hour?”

He nods, and walks away with a little skip in his step.  

Karen waves to him, and then walks the rest of the way to her trailer. 

* * *

Karen’s not really excited about her date with Arthur. Not that she isn’t looking forward to it - she anticipates a pleasant evening, but nothing’s really going to come of it. Perhaps there’s something about leaving that’s made Arthur more inclined to make his move now. She likes being friends with Arthur, but there’s not anything there that’s going to lead to a lasting romantic relationship. They’ll have fun on the weekend. There will be good banter, but she’s not going home with him at the end of the evening. 

(She doesn’t think so, at least. She’s no clairvoyant, so perhaps she shouldn’t cast aspersions on her date with Arthur until it actually happens.) 

Karen eats her lasagna (thank you, Sue from catering, for making her favourite meal for her last day on set) and looks over the lines for their shoots this afternoon, when suddenly she hears a mighty crash from the trailer beside hers that frightens her so much that she almost drops her plate of food. 

( _Damn you, Matthew Smith,_  she thinks to herself as she carefully places the lasagna down by her script.  _You almost made me waste my lasagna_.) 

She runs out of her trailer and bursts in to his, and sees that he has somehow broken a lamp. Also, because Matt is a massive idiot, he’s trying to pick up the broken lamp shards. She tries to get to him and stop him from picking up said broken lamp shards before he cuts himself - and she’s too late. He’s holding up his hand and the grimace he gets on his face is so hilarious that she might laugh if the situation wasn’t so ridiculous (and angst-ridden that it clearly required a lamp to be broken). 

She grabs a couple of kleenexes and then sits down beside him, and presses them on to the cut on his hand. 

“Hey,” Karen says, “I didn’t know you were secretly the Hulk.” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t think the Hulk cuts himself often, Kaz.” 

“But he throws a bunch of stuff,” she replies, because the weekend before they had spent an obscene amount of time looking at trailers for Marvel movies in anticipation of the  _Avengers Assemble_ release. “What’s up, Matt.” 

He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “I’m a bit angry, I guess.” 

“How come?” 

He doesn’t answer her, which is a little worrying. 

“Matt, you know we can still talk,” Karen says. “We probably shouldn’t set a precedent for not communicating if we’re not going to see each other every day from here on out.” 

He still doesn’t say anything. 

“Fine,” she says. “If you’re not talking, I’m not talking.” 

So they don’t talk, and Karen sits and stares at her shoes for a good five or so minutes and wishes that she’d brought her phone or something to make the wait less awkward. 

Finally, he says, “I overheard your and Arthur’s conversation earlier.” 

“And?” 

“I’m a bit mad that you’re going on a date with him,” Matt says, staring straight ahead. 

“What’s it to you, Matt?” Karen asks, and she sort of gets this feeling that they’re at a critical point and some shit between the two of them is going to get knocked loose, which is probably good because they’ve been dancing around fairly serious feelings for each other for ages (well, she knows that she has serious feelings, but can’t really speak for Matt) and it’s probably good that they’re going to have this conversation now because soon there are going to be large, physical obstacles like the continental United States and the Atlantic Ocean between the two of them, and that would make things even more weird and awkward. 

“I thought we were going to hang out on Saturday,” he says, staring straight ahead, “seeing as it’s pretty much your last weekend in London.” 

“Fair,” Karen says. “But we can still go see a film or something on Sunday, and I’m counting on you to help me finish packing during the week and you know that, Matt. So what’s really going on?” 

“Fuck,” he mutters. 

She stares at him expectantly. 

“I’m mad because I wanted to be the one to take you out on a date, and do cutesy things like kiss you under a streetlight and cuddle on your couch and drink tea afterwards,” Matt says, the venom in his voice palpable. “But that clearly isn’t going to happen.” 

Karen tosses her head back and laughs, because the whole lamp-throwing situation got a lot more ridiculous with that confession. (She also doesn’t know what the appropriate response is at the moment, so laughing just seems like the best thing that she could possibly do.) 

Matt (bless him) looks really, really confused. 

“Oh my god,” she says once she’s stopped laughing, “I have been waiting for like, four months for you to make a move.” 

“Excuse me!” Matt says, a little affronted. “Why couldn’t you have done that?” 

“Not relevant to this situation,” she says, waving him off. (It is a good point, and is probably relevant, but for various reasons she is choosing not to address it.) “I was just getting so frustrated with you that I figured that if Arthur’s going to actually  _do something_ , I might as well take it, because we’d have had to wait until kingdom come for you - sorry, either of us - to actually have the courage to say how we feel about each other. After a while I just assumed that you weren’t interested. Which would have been sort of too bad, because I’m pretty interested in you.” 

“You have feelings for me too?” Matt says after a brief pause. 

“I have all of the feelings for you,” Karen says, smiling at Matt, “but mostly love. Fortunately.” 

Matt breathes a sigh of relief, smiles, and kisses Karen on the cheek. “So what happens now?”  

Karen shrugs. “We do what we normally do with more snogging and possibly some sexy times?” 

Matt grins at the last suggestion. “Well, I meant sort of more in the shorter term, like what you’re going to do about your date with Arthur. And the fact that you’re moving to Los Angeles and becoming a big movie star.” 

She shrugs. “That does complicate things a wee bit, doesn’t it?” 

* * *

Karen does not cancel on Arthur, but, to be a little fairer to him, she makes it clear that it’s a goodbye dinner rather than a date. (After much persuading, she even gets him to split the cheque between the two of them.) 

He kisses her on the cheek outside of her flat, and she hopes that Matt’s green-eyed monster can keep itself in check, because that was a friendly cheek kiss. Not the romantic kind. 

When she gets up to her flat, she sees that Matt’s made them tea, and is quite happily settled on her couch, watching some terrible documentary about the most surprising reality show moments on Channel 4. 

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she says, dropping her purse by the dining room table and draping her jacket over a chair. “I sold that to a couple of college kids and they’re coming to pick it up on Friday.” 

“I intend to enjoy it until then,” he says, and she sits down beside him and rests her head on his shoulder. 

“How were things with Arthur?” he asks, then kisses the top of her head. 

“Fine,” Karen says. “I was honest with him about not wanting it to be a date, so they weren’t, and he took it as well as could be expected. We had a fun and friendly evening. We split the cheque.” She looks over at him with a wicked smile and says, “Probably would have liked here it with you better.” 

“Well,” he says, “I refuse to be outdone by Arthur, so I’m taking you out tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at eight.” 

“Oh, fantastic.” 

“It’ll be a proper wonderful date.” 

“I’m counting on it, Smithers.” 


End file.
